The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #12768   Message #102251
Posted By: Charlie Baum
04-Aug-99 - 10:50 AM
Thread Name: Origin: Poor Lazarus (High Sheriff...)
Subject: RE: who wrote 'the high sherriff, .....'
From the Georgia Sea Islands, there's a wonderful version (collected by Alan Lomax on the Southern Journey series, available on CD from Rounder) of a Lazarus ballad with the refrain:

I aks Aunt Dinah, do her dog, he run rabbit?
I aks Aunt Dinah, do her dog, he run rabbit?
Aunt Dinah say No, No No,
Aunt Dinah say No


And I remember an interesting performance by County Down (Anne Dodson, Debbie Suran, and Sarah ___(?)) many years ago of "Lazarus": Each knew a "Lazarus," but one knew a version of this "Poor Lazarus" ballad, and the other knew another song with the same title (the one sung by Joan Baez)--and they figured out an arrangement where they sang both simultaneously, and they fit together!

--Charlie Baum